Thread by @Ayjchan

“The pattern here is unmistakable: At every turn, what could be important information has been withheld.”

“scientists agree that the very fact that these experiments were even on the radar raises significant concerns”

Good to see minds changing. theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

I don’t think the window for possible work on a SARS2 precursor was that narrow (early 2018 to fall 2019) @acritschristoph

We don’t know when the preliminary work on FCS detection in deep sequencing data had been conducted and when a precursor might have been found.

https://twitter.com/ayjchan/status/1440458403998928904

Thanks to painstaking work by @franciscodeasis we know that we have near zero insight to the viruses sampled by the WIV after 2015. And their entire database is missing. We also have no access to their deep sequencing data which wouldn’t regularly be uploaded to databases.

https://twitter.com/franciscodeasis/status/1416089197665001475

To have a rigorous investigation, I believe we have to start pulling documents (included unfunded proposals) and communications from at least the beginning of 2017. To avoid authentication hell where no one will confirm the docs, the best approach might be FOIAs or subpoenas.

The question some scientists are wrestling with now:

Did the WIV go ahead with these experiments even though the proposal suggests they would be done by American scientists?

My answer: Why would they not? They had full access to the data, the expertise, and the infrastructure.

Research is very competitive. If there's a great idea, it will be pursued by multiple parties. In the eyes of the scientists generating the data (deep sequencing of pathogen samples), they likely see it as their right to do the experiments. Why let a collaborator take the glory?

We already know from the published literature and FOIA'ed documents that the WIV had made and studied chimeric SARSr-CoVs in their BSL2 and performed humanized animal experiments at BSL3. Despite observing enhanced characteristics in chimera, they proposed MORE of the same work.

After seeing up to 10,000x increased viral loads of the chimeric SARSr-CoVs in humanized mouse lungs, they said "Let's do this with MERS!"

https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1432007464392794118